Category: vulnerable neighbors

Jordan walked in the church where I worked at the time, two days after Donald Trump was elected president. Welcoming him back to Foundry UMC seemed to ease my inner emotional volcano which kept spitting out heat & denial. We swapped hellos; then reality of the election came up.

His perspective delivered more than timely insight; but it took me a second to realize what it was.

As we talked more, it dawned on me I was sharing this conversation with a person who inspired trust. For over a year Jordan would visit the church to access our comminity clothing closet. We would talk pretty regularly but more on a surface level. This deeper exchange now was comforting, and harmonized well with my cravings for solace. It was the substance of friendship.

Then a few weeks went by, bringing on a piercing November chill. My husband and I were running to dinner at a local cafe. As we opened the cafe’s front door, a familiar voice said: “Hey Jill, how are you?”

It was Jordan rising up from his bedroll on the sidewalk. We hugged and talked. He and my husband shook hands introducing eachother. We offered respective ‘good nights’ as Jordan lay down to rest with traffic whipping by on Connecticut Avenue.

Our conversation immediately came back to mind from a few weeks prior. Memories of comfort from that post-election talk now stood in stark opposition to the very different levels of comfort existing in our respective lives. The moment evoked a ton of humility for how God blesses us with friendship — the unforeseen and sometimes discordant layers of which reveal a road map for how friends can learn from and care for eachother.

Engaging front-of-house hospitality for community fascinates me. Hospitality is an unparalleled opportunity where customer service, sense of welcome, unconditional attention, and even spiritual uplift can all be experienced by a guest.

How can guests perceive resourcefulness?

perceive responsiveness? or perceive acts of (intended) good will?

Guests from different hospitality scenarios in my professional life have taught vibrant lessons toward these questions. And often recognizing the merit of emotional intelligence proved a key part of learnings.

Emotional intelligence(EI) affects delivery of hospitality in countless ways. It’s potent and often beautiful how keen emotional discernment can encourage (or if a lack thereof – can repel) any particular community or guest. I should swallow a dose of humility now too because at least for me, emotionally intelligent actions can be easy to overlook or harder at times to appreciate.

A friend Sarah shared last week some hospitality moments from her workplace. We then more consciously chewed on what she realized about delivering hospitality in-the-moment from those exchanges (and what stood out from an emotional intelligence perspective).

It was an engrossing conversation where (3) hospitality insights jumped out:

1. Cultivating emotional validation

My friend works in a community center and engages a wide range of the public with varied ages, races, and economic realities.

The scene — A young mom arrived and shared concerns her pre-teen child was starting to smoke cigarettes. The parent began to stutter pretty heavily, and avoided eye contact with my friend Sarah (who recognized signs of the parent’s discomfort in admitting the whole scenario).

EI moment — The goal for my friend became to remove any potential barriers to trust that the mom’s discomfort could possibly develop. So she (the friend) said to the parent she was so grateful she arrived at the community center, and had shared her personal concern for her child. My buddy in that instance affirmed the woman’s presence; the concern for her child’s health; and that the mother’s emotional courage was evident and admirable. The young mom ended up staying for 25 more minutes to discuss potential next steps and resources.

Word of caution — Sincere affirmation was the ultimate goal for this dynamic. Validating the mother’s caring nature and her action as a family leader were paramount. Conscious conversational space was made to include and legitimize her discomfort. As the community center’s representative, it would have been negligent let alone failed hospitality for my friend to have responded with an emotionally flippant or indifferent reply like “well that’s just sad to hear…”

The scene — Going deeper into the above exchange, my friend Sarah at the community center also asked the visiting mom questions on a few different levels: permission for time and permission to further inquire about her concerns.

EI moment — She (my buddy) used authentic lines of questioning to further demonstrate respect for the nervous, worried parent. First Sarah asked the mother overtly if she had “20 or 25 minutes” to further discuss her child’s smoking habit and the center’s resources to help. Next, Sarah inwardly committed to establishing a listening environment for this guest: to fully listen to the mother’s responses without interruption (as much as possible in light of potential time constraints). These intentional decisions helped to relax the dynamic; the mother started stuttering less and opening up about ways the center could be of benefit.

Word of caution — Checking in with this guest on whether or not she had more time to discuss matters goes beyond basic politeness in its value. It is a core hospitality-delivery tool. If the guest did not have further time to invest in that moment, then that would have cued my friend to request permission to email her further information and questions. Therefore, no matter how the mom responds to the question of time – her schedule is honored, and the dynamic to effectively provide resourceful-rich hospitality is still forged.

3. Utilizing self-restraint

The scene — My friend remembered that toward the end of their discussion, the parent asked a question about potential treatment. Sarah felt some compulsion to respond immediately in that moment. But she refrained. Why? Because she also saw sensitive options (that could help the mother’s child) that would do well with written, deeper context.

EI moment — So to ensure benefits and risks would be expressed more clearly, and do the mother’s concerns better justice, Sarah underscored the value of the parent’s question and offered to reply more thoroughly over email. She also invited the mother to set future appointments anytime for more personalized conversation.

Word of caution — Delaying a reply in this way is not intended as procrastination, or as a means to avoid sensitive, difficult discussions. The core intent was to acknowledge that a compulsive albeit reasonably informative reply was likely going to come across as scattered. Sarah’s emotional discernment was to avoid that potential guest perception. So she instead, mindfully affirmed the mother’s question and assured an emailed clarification would be forthcoming.

Conversations with two different neighbors unfolded within a few days of each other. They keep floating in my head for further reflection. During a front hospitality shift at church (my workplace too back then), I met both of these guests as their initial point of welcome to the church’s campus.

The first encounter was with a younger gentleman in his twenties. He was spirited and articulated his words with a little punch….not with a disrespectful tone at all, but with an audible beat of precision.

He proceeded to offer his thanks for the church helping him replace his birth certificate a while ago, which was neat to hear! It was motivating to meet him and receive his sentiment on behalf of the team.

His speech pattern then began to accelerate.

He said: “They erased my memory because they inject serum in my eyeballs each night up in Baltimore.”

I wasn’t sure what to say beyond some quiet eye contact.

His speaking rate continued to accelerate then slow back down, then speed back up as he described his memory loss and eye ball injections. It was clear he deserved compassion, and sincere regard. The guest repeated expressions of appreciation for the church’s volunteer team again that had helped him secure his birth certificate. He mentally bounced in between the contexts of injections, memory loss, & gratefulness.

Bewilderment
He seemed to want his gratefulness for the church community to be honored in a certain way but I wasn’t sure what to do. It was a sense in my gut that I was trying to interpret. Then mental fatigue really kicked in. I just wanted the exchange to end but wanted to offer some sort of resourcefulness. I asked if he’d like a mini directory about the church and nearby health providers too; I offered my own thanks to him for visiting while directing him to the door.

I’m still analyzing this guest engagement from a hospitality perspective. Sometimes providing attentiveness while ignoring some inner bewilderment is apart of extending hospitality.

I’m grateful to him for that learning. Something else about the exchange though made an impact that I did not realize until later.

The next week

A local neighbor arrived at the church asking for a clean pair of jeans. He was in his 40s, had lived on the street a while, conversational (and I recall very warm too). As he shared about his clothing needs, the inner bewilderment from the recent guest last week cropped up. That instantly provoked internal fatigue that in that moment with this new guest, I just didn’t want to feel again.

So I interrupted the guest in mid-sentence with the hope to end the conversation.

I instantly felt guilt & regret sprout up inside. It was an impatient move to interrupt (and inhospitable to say the least). The man went silent.

He then replied with beautiful self-control & dignity: “Ma’am I’m poor and am preparing for the colder season. I don’t mean to take up unnecessary time. But when you’re poor you need to see asking for help as an asset. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

I felt like such an ass.

I apologized, thanking him for his forgiving patience and clarity of mind. After we found some suitable clothes that fit, we had a strong, brief discussion about his entry to living on the street in multiple states. His wisdom opened my mind on many levels. For starters – he brought to a more conscious level how being homeless does not mean your self-knowledge or capacity for wisdom is less than other neighbors who are perceived as ‘more integrated or relevant in society.’

Conversation with him revealed how I’d held this social bias yet was not conscious of it.

Our exchange underscored how delivering hospitality does not simply demand empathetic communications but also unconditional patience even when inner resources may be stretched.

Afterthought

It occurred to me later that me being a wee bit mindful of self-care would be goooooooood & prudent.

These encounters bring to mind now a devotional excerpt from Sarah Young’s enriching book Jesus Calling.

She wrote from her October 31 entry:

Learn to listen to (God) even while you are listening to other people. As they open their souls to your scrutiny, you are on holy ground.

What is it about the pitch of a person’s voice that can convey a message, as much or more so than their spoken words?

A woman last week was walking much of 17th Street, the main street in our neighborhood. She walked a measured pace and yelled one word repeatedly as if creating a one-person protest; a few blocks away from intersecting her on the sidewalk – her screams of one word rang out in fierce volume penetrating us nearby with what felt like surround sound:

No!

No!

No!

With every other step, she yelled “no” over and over in fever pitch.

The tenor in her voice held a mix of fierceness and anger. But it is unclear in my mind now how much of that fierceness was actually meant from her (or was instead being projected from the rants in my own head):

No! more polar political rages

No! more starving for food

No! more racist sexist binges

No! more denied grasps over boundaries as a fleeing people collapse on barbed wire

She kept screaming her “no” and I became concerned that I’d over indulge my own frustrations of this world, caving to a self-righteous pity party.

Then as the woman passed by and echoed onward, a memory of a good friend and colleague floated up about the relationship between justice and persevering. She once said:

“No, NO, NO ….I can’t sit still with the world this way.”

Yes, with some mercy and discipline (and an avalanche of love), forward let us go.

A kind, raw-hearted man entered my work a while back (a church not far from the White House). He asked for information about good shelters in the area, and if we could sit together in the chapel for a while.

We sat in quiet some minutes before he shared he’d been hiding in a locked bathroom. His lover in a violent rage had beat him before he was able to scramble to the restroom where he locked himself in; meanwhile his partner attempted to break the bathroom door down off and on for about 48 hours. Eventually the threatening partner gave up and left. So this guy now in the chapel was at least out of immediate harm seeking shelter someplace else.

That’s all I know about that man back then and his vulnerable crossroads toward safer ground. In my imaginings since, I pretend (hope?) the start of his once beloved relationship held some kind of shared appreciation of rights — right to breathe, right to breathe in safety, a right to simply live in a space together, both aware of life’s unforgiving spikes (but as aware that each qualified for safety amidst the turbulence, an equal capacity of deservedness).

Who knows what triggered the violent partner. Did the straining complexity of life spark an evilness within him? Did a tidal wave of vulnerability or sensed lack of control press his weaker side into dominance and cruelty?

I just don’t know.

Something about the recent Brexit vote brings all this envisioning of that weary man to mind again, and his primal run for safety.

It is reasonable to say we as humans in general want to live a safe life. We want to live with loved ones in the framework of safe shelter, safe day to day experience, safe access to food and rest. It’s reasonable to say that’s what Britons want.

It’s reasonable to say that’s what immigrants want also. Immigrants are fleeing for new lands to find new space for safer ground. They are running from violent threats, from lack, from fear, escaping from horrific deficits of safety.

Given this common yearning for safe places, it appears Britons with the Brexit vote have met the immigrant flight from fear with fear itself.

There are many political and economic layers to Brexit and the EU that are in play here too; I respect this and am no expert on all of those dynamics. As it relates to immigration though, I keep comparing Brexit with the threatened man on the run long ago, arriving bewildered at the chapel.

I equate it to this “what if…?” possibility:

It’s as if when the fleeing man knocked at the church’s door back then, colleagues and I locked the doors and then our neighbor’s doors and the doors to potential shelters just to preserve our own territorial comfort. It’s as if back then we even may have slipped out from behind those chapel doors, let the fearful man in for a few minutes, then kicked him out letting the huge bolts of once welcoming safe, oak chambers clamp shut in his face.

It is as if back then we grew childishly discontent from the inherent civility and organizational energy required to share; …..so we elevated our desire for comfort above his primal need for safety. Our comfort then would have arrived at the expense of his basic need.

The local baker said during our transaction: “It looks like your church is an interesting place.”

We were hashing out specifics for a huge cake order honoring Pentecost; I’m newer to the Methodist (and Christian) church world and just learned myself that Pentecost is the actual birth of the Christian church. I’m still getting clearer on the details of the biblical celebration but it’s a grand thing which many of faith party-hearty for every year; …lots of history still to learn and ponder on my end!

So then the baker and I finessed what the orange and red flames could look like in fiery cream cheese icing.

“Our church IS interesting, you’re welcome to Sunday services anytime,” I said back.

The baker replied:

“Nah you all wouldn’t want me. I’m gay and my old church already kicked me out.”

A ton of thoughts zipped through my head right then: what’s a kind and honest way to respond? Will my words come across as too sappy or too familiar or forced or ugh…

After a few seconds, I just wanted to at least convey a sense of acceptance in our conversation. He shared such vulnerability already in what his former church did. Finally I got over myself and said he was more than welcome to participate anytime.

“Really?” he said in surprise. “Is my partner welcome too?!”

Then we talked about LGBTQI advocacy and marriage briefly and how it’s all supported in my neighborhood (and certainly at my church community).

Later after this talk of cake and justice — what struck my memory was how certain he seemed that his exclusion from a religious place was eminent. It was as if his emotional labor had already been invested, confronted, toiled over and rejected, with no expectation for fruits of that labor to grow a different or more communal type of hope. He inherently assumed he wouldn’t be welcome…that his desire to be apart of a formalized community of folks was not a relevant or acceptable or palatable desire for others to validate given who he was as a human.

There’s so much about formal religion for my heart and mind to grapple with, so many questions. But while still on this journey of learning, that first Pentecost celebration thousands of years ago comes to mind, vibrant and hopeful and in motion well before various biblical interpretations were ever published. At that moment was the spirit of Jesus nailing lists to trees that would soon become church doors declaring: “Hey forgiveness and love are all for YOU & US but not for them or those other types…”

Or were the newest followers of that freshly born faith quivering with loving compassion for everybody….in what my pastor calls wonderful, radical hospitality?

It was a strange day today at church where I work. Many intense events all happened at once. First a man with questionable sanity entered the chapel & began to scream. He was unresponsive so I called the police. While he continued to scream, another gentleman came in from the street asking for a belt from the church’s community clothing closet. This man looked unwell and thin, I’d say 100 lbs tops, and his pants were being held up by his hands.

The screaming guest meanwhile kept up his volume and the police had yet to arrive. Then other people entered the church asking for directions to the White House and another woman sought some food. My nerves were fluttering up a storm; a pastor came out to help ease the crowd.

Then the police arrived right as the precious frail man needing a belt got tears in his eyes because I couldn’t find a damn belt to fit him. My frustration was at a fever pitch, let alone my feelings of inadequacy to help this guy.

All of a sudden the screaming man, now surrounded by police officers, calmed down and walked over to us with what looked like vivid sense of purpose. He took off his belt and handed it to the other man in need. The belt fit well and I thanked God for bringing such sanity and kindness to the chaotic moment.

My brain is still swirling from everything. It was a humbling moment to see up close how hope & resourcefulness can extend from one stranger to another.

Even though the screaming man seemed to slip in and out of lucidity, in that moment something clicked, some inside awareness in himself which recognized the basic human need in a stranger.